Eric Reid is single-handedly trying to end the false narratives about Colin Kaepernick

It's not often that you seen an NFL player call out his own team's website, but that's exactly what Eric Reid did on Friday.

After the Panthers official Twitter account tweeted out a story about Colin Kaepernick, Reid responded to the tweet by correcting a fact that he felt was incorrect.

In the story, which was written by Bill Voth of Panthers.com, Voth was asked if he thought Carolina might be interested in signing Kaepernick this offseason. In his response, Voth didn't shoot down the possibility, but he did say that one knock on Kaepernick is that he lost his starting quarterback job with the 49ers to Blaine Gabbert in 2016, and that's when Reid decided to jump in the conversation.

He didn’t lose his job to Blaine. He was coming off of three surgeries and needed more time to heal. Once healed, he started again. No more false narratives in 2019 please. He’s in the best shape of his life, and ready to help win a championship. https://t.co/8CTlgDrMYR

Since this "fact" -- that Kaepernick lost his job to Gabbert -- seems to come up often, Reid clearly felt the need to set the record straight. The thing about the Kaepernick-Gabbert battle is that if anyone knows how it went down, it's Reid, and that's because he played for the 49ers in 2016.

The 49ers coach at the time, Chip Kelly, had to pick a winner of the team's quarterback battle in late August 2016 and when that happened, Kelly didn't feel comfortable going with Kaepernick due to the quarterback's injuries and his low weight.

"He's not [at his playing weight] and obviously you understand that because he did have three surgeries, so he's limited in the type of lifting he does," Kelly said. "So he's not the same size he was when he played. I don't know the exact playing weight he was at, because I wasn't here before. But, he'll be the first to tell you that he's not where he was before."

Basically, Gabbert won the "competition" by default, Kaepernick didn't lose it. As a matter of fact, Kaepernick was back on the field as the team's starter as soon as Kelly felt he was healthy enough to play, which came in Week 6.

During an interview in June 2017, Kelly admitted that he let Kaepernick play starting in Week 6 even though he still didn't think his quarterback was 100 percent.

What this means is that Kelly felt that Kaepernick was a better option than Gabbert, even though Kaepernick still wasn't completely healthy. Think about that: Kelly didn't wait for Kaepernick to completely heal, he just waited until he was healthy enough to replace Gabbert.

During the same interview, Kelly also vouched for Kaepernick.

"I like Kap a lot. He's a really good person. And he really wants to win and he's highly competitive," Kelly said. "He's got a real good physical skill-set to play the position and has played it at a really high level."

One other person who's willing to vouch for Kaepernick is Reid. Before signing off Twitter, Reid made sure to let the Panthers know that he has Kaepernick's number if they need it.

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John Breech has been at CBS Sports since July 2011 and currently spends most of his time writing about the NFL. He's believed to be one of only three people in the world who thinks that Andy Dalton will...
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